THE HAGUE/TIRANA - Albania rejected on Friday a US request to host the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, dealing a blow to a US-Russian accord to eliminate the nerve agents from the country's protracted civil war.

Negotiations went down to the wire, delaying the scheduled adoption on Friday of a step-by-step plan to get rid of 1,300 tons of Syria's sarin, mustard and other agents.

Albania's refusal marked an unprecedented break from its traditionally staunch allegiance to NATO ally Washington. It followed a storm of protest in the Adriatic republic, where protesters complained of exploitation.

"It is impossible for Albania to get involved in this operation," Prime Minister Edi Rama, just two months in the job, said in a televised address to the nation.

"We lack the necessary capacities to get involved in this operation," he said, following days of growing protests outside government buildings.

Hundreds of demonstrators, including students cutting school classes, gathered to denounce the plan on Friday, "NO" painted on their faces.

There was no immediate indication where the United States or Russia might look next to dispose of thousands of tons of toxic waste.

Why destroy the weapons in a place with no infrastructure and a population present? Just ship it to the US’s Johnston Island or the equivalent Russian facility that are already setup for this deactivation and destruction. This makes too much sense so there must be some hidden reason why the obvious is not the strategy.

They are 30 % Muslim, 30 % Christian and 40 $ Atheist, I think is the rough estimate. It is not like Arab nations where the Christians are legitimately scared of the Muslims majority and feel they have to go along out of fear - in Albania Christians and Atheists together definitely have their share of political and cultural influence. Some of the Albanian non Muslims do have a tendency to support jihadists such as the KLA due to a my nationality, right or wrong mentality, which sadly is common in that part of Europe.

But in this case, I think it is more of an issue of being fed up with Obama’s out of control attempts to exert his will over various nations of his choosing. I suspect most balkans nations would have reacted the exact same way.

One of the very very few that are, and here’s why: under the reign of that hell-spawned scum Enver Hoxha, dictator-for-life of Albania, both churches AND mosques were shuttered, prayers to God AND Allah were said at the risk of one’s life, and both Bibles and Qu’rans were burned.

The only time Communism wasn’t able to squash Islam was in Afghanistan, and then because the ruling elite didn’t use a mass draft and descent on them like AK-47-wielding locusts. In Albania they got just as much stomped on as Christians and there are more than a few fire-forged friendships.

About two years ago, I remember some interview with a manager from the Johnston Island facility and the question came of what happens when they’d finished all the US deactivation and destruction....and the manager simply didn’t know.

It would seem perfectly logical that you’d select the island facility, and continue a safe operation.

The only reason for not selecting the island? You don’t intend to ever start or complete any of this business, and you are merely wasting weeks and months pretending that you would do it.

Course, it may be that no one in the news media has told the President about Johnson Island, and thus...he doesn’t know about it. That’s the primary problem....he knows nothing, unless CNN tells him.

You can’t blame the Albanians for not wanting to clean up Syria’s stink. Who even thot that up? I looked in the big book to see who has the neatest hi-tech chemical disposal facility and Albania didn’t turn up. Basher made the problem. Make Basher clean it up-—with help from Iran. It’s possible to get really sick of tinhorns making messes then milking someone else to clean them up.

Granpa, if we really really wanted the Albanians to handle this we should merely put the materials in a new Mercedes SUV and walk away.

Within hours, the MB and the toxins will be on their way to colorful and quaint Albania, the only country in the world in which stolen cars and parts are a major economic sector (along with prostitution, extortion, and people-smuggling).

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